Stop it.
are not the Church.
are bull-headed.
are prone to give up.
think you’re right.
are narrow-minded.
only have 24 hours in a day.
have only 2 ears to hear from God.
have only 1 life experience to draw from.
can blindly veer straight into foolishness.
easily slide into pride.
think you’re more amazing than you really are.
are alone.
collaborate.
curate the best ideas.
encourage one another.
refine processes.
think outside your box.
have 24 x ___ hours in a day.
have 2 x ____ ears to hear from God.
can build more relationships.
have multiple life experiences.
fight against pride that any one person is always “right.”
get more done.
pursue the most wisdom.
are the Church.
So quit trying to lead by yourself.
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. – Proverbs 15:22
Yesterday, I talked about an offending experience I had with my digi-Bible. I was directly offended, being the only person in the audience with an iPad…hearing the pastor theologically hammer my iPad as an illegitimate Bible.
This time, from a different preacher, I found myself offended in a different way.
In fact, I wasn’t personally offended. I was offended on behalf of someone else.
I guess you could say I was proxy offended. (or I was proxily offended? Can I get away with that grammatically? Is proxily even a word?)
During his sermon, the pastor made an off-handed remark. Though off-handed, it had the desired effect.
It went like this:
The way we do things is…umm…not like other churches here in our community do things…”
He said this while rolling his eyes and shaking his head from side to side, pausing between the words “other” and “churches” for emphasis.
Everybody in the audience knew exactly which other church he was referring to. A handful chuckled. I winced in pain. The guy beside me whispered, “Are they talking about _____?”
He was pointing out a way of doing church services that he didn’t like. A personal preference that he didn’t care for. A programming difference that he had decided not to do in his context.
Instead of simply advocating for his method, he chose to rake another church (and their pastor) through the mud for a quick laugh and a longer-lasting insult.
Truth: It’s never okay to publicly criticize another ministry over a gray area. Never. (I even struggle with the idea of publicly criticizing another church over black-and-white issues. Seems like Matthew 18 would, instead, prompt me to have a redemption-minded conversation with them instead of public condemnation)
Not from the stage. Not in staff meeting. Not in a blog post.
Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should.
Do what you’re called to do. Do it well. And when you have an opinion about another church…stuff it. Let it motivate you to do what you do even better.
You’d rather not be as “flashy”? Then don’t.
You’d rather not have as many programs? Then don’t.
You’d rather not have a keytar? Then don’t.
You’d rather focus more heavily on the homeless community? Then do.
You’d rather preach for 75 minutes? Then do.
You’d rather sing from hymnals? Then do.
When it’s a gray issue, leave it between that local congregation and God. Public condemnation tears the Kingdom apart.
Question: have you ever heard a pastor publicly criticize another local church?
I have something you don’t. And you need that. So ask me for it.
Maybe it’s my lawn mower.
Maybe it’s a pinch of salt.
Or maybe it’s $100.
Maybe it’s some wisdom I have.
Maybe it’s a ride to the airport.
Learning to ask for help is vital to your spiritual growth.
But it’s awkward, isn’t it?
Culture would like us to believe that this is just a “guy” problem. That since guys don’t want to ask for directions, they’re the ones that feel it’s awkward to ask for help. But this awkwardness and self-dependent isolation isn’t just limited to the “y” chromosome.
Men and women deal with this.
Asking for help gives the appearance of weakness. Because, if you were stronger, you wouldn’t need help, right? You wouldn’t need money. Or advice. Or guidance.
Asking for help signifies you don’t have all you need for life. It screams, “I’m not independently self-sufficient.” It rails against our culture of independence and isolation.
Nobody wants to say that. Nobody wants to show the chink in their armor. Nobody wants to appear weak and vulnerable and exposed. Nobody. We want to appear to have more insight and more capabilities than we actually do, that we don’t need outside wisdom or influence. We especially never need correction.
But it’s our weaknesses that expose the way that God created us, because He didn’t create us for complete independence. He created us to be dependent on others.* He created us to live in need of encouragement. He created us to live in need of biblical counsel. He created us to live in need of sex advice. He created us to live in need of advice for our present circumstances.
I bet you need a pinch of salt right now. Or $100. Or life’s falling apart, and you need much, much more.
Love is an unbelievably transformational and redemptive force that we need extended to us. If we’ll just ask.
Time to get off your high horse and ask. You were created to do just that.
Time to say, “This is awkward, but…I need some help.”
*Yes, we’re supposed to be dependent on God. No doubt about that. But for the purposes of this post, depending on God alone becomes a ruse to really go at life alone. Because you can still hide your inadequacies.
Growing up, I played a fair amount of golf. My parents would drop me off in the morning and pick me up later that afternoon.
Many days, I was by myself, just me and the narrow fairways.
There’s something epic about that picture to me, even now. Here’s the picture:
A 12 year old beating buckets of range balls on the dew-soaked ground until his hands callous over while the sun comes up. Walking 9 hours on a golf course by himself, evaluating every shot, pouring over every sliding putt. Kicking himself every drive that trickled into the second cut of rough. Spending hours on the putting green engraining that perfect putting stroke.
And I’d love to say that that was the real picture. But more often than not, halfway through the first bucket of range balls, I’d decide to call it quits and just start my round. By hole 5, instead of lining up every putt, I would try to break my speed record of how quickly I could finish the hole.
It wasn’t gritty. It wasn’t hard, disciplined work. There was nothing epic about it. No Braveheart music was playing in the background as the sun set.
For too long, I operated by myself spiritually, too. And I don’t mean that I wasn’t a part of a local church. I don’t mean I was intentionally trying to go it alone. It just sort of happened.
Sin snuck up on me, and I chose to bury it.
Instead of bearing my soul, I hid it, covering up with a mask of, “It’s all good.” Putting on a facade, I chose to battle my sin alone, me-and-Jesus style.
The more I wore my mask, the fuller and more beautiful it became. Me-and-Jesus style was safe, but damaging. It was safe, but kept people at a distance. It was safe, but held me back.
It wasn’t gritty. It wasn’t hard, disciplined work. There was nothing epic about it. No Braveheart music was playing in the background as the sun set.
It was a life of acting like I was okay. Acting like I always had it together. Acting like I had all of the answers. Projecting an image I wanted you to see. But in my heart, knowing I wasn’t taking the steps of faith I needed.
Bringing other guys into the battle with me made all of the difference. Jesus was more than enough for my salvation…but sanctification was another thing. I needed authentic community. I needed significant relationships where I could be honest. I needed to be known.
God’s not created us to go through life on our own. The more you try to, the less fulfilling you’ll find life to be. You’ll also find that sin overtakes much quicker, fears conquer, doubts are more persuasive, sin more enticing, passing problems overwhelm much more fully, and the daily grind of life takes its toll more rapidly.
You were created incomplete…needing to be invested in. As much as you need to be invested in, you also need to invest in others. That’s the double-edged beauty that is community.
Authentic community is real, messy, gut-wrenching, and full of grace and hope.
I need that.
And so do you.
Let love be without hypocrisy. – Romans 12:9
* image credit: Creative Commons user FoxyPar4
There are some blog post titles that people use just to draw you in.
“Sexy” titles, if you will.
Titles that build hype, often overselling and under delivering.
This happens to not be one of those titles.
It was unintentional, really. I didn’t set out that warm Saturday afternoon telling myself, “I bet Laura’s grandma and I could scrap today. She’d probably love that.”
It just sort of happened.
We were standing beside the door, she preparing to leave. In retrospect, I should’ve just given her a hug and opened the door. We launched into a conversation about a TV show that my wife and I watch. One that she, consequently, doesn’t. Her reasons for abstaining are moral convictions, which I can completely understand and respect. With respect to the show, she doesn’t appreciate how the children interact with their parents, how the wife interacts with her husband, and some of the lifestyle decisions that characters on the show have made. She laid out her whole case in about 5 minutes.
When she finished, I felt like she has issued an invitation to me to lay out my thoughts. As I creeped closer, though, I realized she was siren-ing me to the edge of a cliff. Like a moth drawn to that strangely-buzzing blue light, I walked right into the trap. There was no winning this one. No way I could emerge a hero of informed reason and logic. Not a chance. I was peering off the edge of a cliff.
As words came out of my mouth, I tried to catch them. The whole time I’m talking, I’m thinking, “What are you doing?!? Back away…back away!” I got that look from my wife. I don’t even have to describe it. Husbands, you know what I’m talking about.
But it was too late. Back out now, and I look like a heel. Keep going, and I look like a heel. Close my eyes and run…that was probably the best option, but Reeds aren’t cowards. We’re a bit foolhardy sometimes, but we’re not cowards.
The point I was trying to make was this:
I can watch a TV show (note: the show in question is family-friendly), and completely separate it from informing my theological framework. In fact, when I watch a show, I view it through the theological lens I’ve constructed through hard work, sweat, and tears. I strive for a theology informed deeply by the Scriptures.
I can watch a show and say, “What they’re doing there…that’s not good. That’s not how I’m going to parent.” Not in a judgmental kind of way. But in a way where I’m exercising wisdom and discernment.
I’m not watching TV as my devotional time. Nor am I watching it in hopes that they’ll somehow slip in a good word about the local church. That’s not TV’s job. That’s my job!
In fact, the moment I allow TV to twist my theology is the moment I’ve headed down a slope more slippery than the one I was peering down with my grandma-in-law.
She stood on the other side of this argument, urging extreme caution with what we fill our minds. She warned that subtle lies slip in back doors, and make their way into our lives. TKO. She just ‘eye-of-the-tigered’ me.
I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with her. I just happen to see the other side of the coin, enjoying 30 minutes of laughter, catching a slice of culture, and not succumbing to the subtle lies. I believe that this is a generational issue more than anything else. My generation can watch a show, laugh, enjoy the story, and separate that from how we live our lives. I believe that the generation that precedes me more closely intertwines real life with media content.
I’m not sure that one of us is right and the other wrong. In fact, in that moment, I waved my white flag of surrender. And made a future note to myself:
Don’t pick a fight with a grandma. Even if you win, you’ll lose.
Question:
Where do you stand? Is it acceptable to watch a show with questionable (though not offensive, cause-you-to-stumble) content? Or should we shield our eyes from anything that could depict something less than what we want for our lives and our families?
* image credit: Creative Commons user Robert Daniel Ullman
I find myself in a strange stage of life at this moment. In many ways, I can appeal to two very different groups: older leaders and younger leaders.
To younger leaders, I’m older. I’ve been in vocational ministry for nearly 6 years, have experience writing, teaching, leading teams, and consulting. I’ve been married for more than 7 years and have a 3 year old son. To “young” leaders, I’m old…ahem…experienced.
To older leaders, I’m still young. I’m not yet 30, still have a young child, have not run as many ministry laps as others, and still have a lot to learn. The “wet” behind my ears isn’t yet fully dried.
I find myself stuck between new leaders and old leaders. Which leaves me categorically nowhere. Thanks a lot, late-20s.
For many of the decisions in my life right now, I live in this tension. I’ve been around long enough to stand on my own feet…but l have also been around long enough to know I don’t know everything. There are still days I feel in over my head. There are still days where I doubt myself. There are still days when I desperately need the sage advice that experience brings.
But I’ve been around long enough that people are looking at me for that same kind of advice. Which frightens me…and should frighten many others, too.
Many days, I wonder whether the next step forward is a good one…or is just a creepy man with a white wigbeard. Should I tell him what I want…or look at him, like my son did, with much trepidation?
Allow me, out of this tension, to speak to you.
We need you. Urge us to proceed with caution or to run full throttle. Prod us to start something new. Encourage us to quit doing what we’re doing. Tell us what you would do if you were our age. We crave your years of experience. We long to learn from your failures so we don’t replicate them. Help us to stand on your shoulders and see further than our own vantage point offers.
Seek wisdom. It’s out there for you. In books, podcasts, and blog posts. It’s available in other men and women, screaming to shed light on the dark and confusing areas of your life. Don’t try to navigate the fog on your own. Life’s too short, and you haven’t lived enough of it.
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech. (Proverbs 1:20-21)
Whatever stage in life you find yourself, you have a role. Lead upwards and downwards, sideways and backwards. The Kingdom needs you.
My son asked me to go outside and play football with him yesterday. Mind you, he’s 3. So football for him looks a lot safer for me now than it will in a few years.
We were throwing the ball back and forth, and he was loving every minute of it. I’d throw it as high as I could, and he’d watch it come crashing down to the ground and bounce strange directions. He’d mimic me and watch it bounce again.
He’d say, “Daddy…watch me!” And I’d watch him throw the ball up in the air and hear him squeal with delight that he did it.
Of course, when he would, I’d go nuts, making a big deal and encouraging him that he threw the ball.
Then one time, unintentionally, I didn’t encourage him. I didn’t tell him he did a good job. I watched him throw the ball, then walked over to pick it up and continue the cycle.
It’s not that he didn’t do a good job…I just didn’t tell him that he did.
And he asked me a question that caused me to stop mid-stride:
Dat cool, daddy?
He wanted to know if he was still doing it right. He wanted validation from someone who knew the ropes, and knew what a “good throw” was supposed to look and feel like. He wanted to hear from his dad that I thought what he was doing was cool.
We all want to be validated by someone who knows the ropes. By someone who’s been in our shoes and walked where we’re going. Who can shed a little light on our paths to make the journey a little more navigable.
Older leaders: we need your encouragement. We need your ‘atta-boy!’ We need your wisdom and insight. We need your gut-level response to our gut-level response.
Don’t give up on us. We need you.
But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. – Hebrews 3:13
*Photo credit: BackDrop Express
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑